Japan earthquake impacts Tohoku rowers

Naomi Wakasa, of JARA corporate governance commission has informed World Rowing of the following news:

“JARA is located in Tokyo and in the Tokyo area we had almost no severe damage. However, the northern part of Japan has had a severe disaster, and still now we cannot grasp all of the details.

“The competition scheduled for March (high school and junior high school regatta) has been cancelled because of the seriousness of the disaster and difficulties in transport conditions including Tokyo’s metropolitan area. Also we decided to postpone the masters regatta (domestic) scheduled for May.”

The high school regatta was scheduled to be in Hamamatsu city, Shizuoka which is located 250km west of Tokyo. So the main reason for cancellation is transportation issues.

Tokyo has been divided into five groups with each group having 2 – 3 hours of power outages by turns. This has impacted on the JARA headquarters and on rowing clubs throughout Japan.

One rowing club that was destroyed by the earthquake is the Tohoku University Rowing Club in the city of Sendai which was hit by a tsunami following the earthquake. Situated next to the Sendai airport, the club was submerged by water. Tohoku University Rowing Club was established in 1895 and, Wakasa says, is one of the top schools for intercollegiate rowing in Japan. It has 33 student rowers, 13 coaches and graduate students (rowers), and four staff members. Tohoku University Rowing Club has spawned many top rowers including rowers who competed at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games.

The Tohoku University rowers have been able to continue to train as they have a ‘sub’ boat house at the Toda (1964 Tokyo Olympics) regatta course near Tokyo. “The rowers are staying at Toda now,” says Wakasa. “There are many boat clubs around the course, so I hope we can help each other.”

Rowing clubs have been donating oars to help people who have been using any kind of boat to evacuate areas affected by the tsunami.